Trial of Gilles De Rais (18 page)

Read Trial of Gilles De Rais Online

Authors: George Bataille

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Cultural Anthropology, #Psychology, #True Crime, #European History, #France, #Social History, #v.5, #Literary Studies, #Medieval History, #Amazon.com, #Criminology, #Retail, #History

BOOK: Trial of Gilles De Rais
9.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
It could also be that Guillaume de La Jumelière, over and above the sales and scandalous squanderings, caught wind of the Marshal’s criminal atrocities. The scandal evidently did not come to light in one day. The public rumor spreads only slowly. The poor folk do not speak without trembling; the lords keep quiet for another reason. Occasionally they act like the clergy, induced to throw a veil over the faults of one of their own: they condemn their faults, but they keep them quiet.
Year’s end
 
The following testimony can, if necessary, be connected to his return from Orléans. But first it must be said that it cannot be taken too seriously. The notary public at the trial retained it, but its little sense can only serve to weaken the case for the accusation. If we mention it, like others of equal value, our purpose is to be thorough, and to take the opportunity to emphasize that the accusation rests
in
toto on those testimonies that are precise, whose number is in every way considerable.
At the trial in 1440, an inhabitant of Machecoul, Guillaume Hilairet, a witness of the first alleged disappearance (p. 258), claims to have “previously heard one of Rais’ women, whose name he did not know, complaining at Machecoul of the loss of a child of hers.” These words follow the statement of an event that the witness says dates back “about five years,” that is theoretically to 1435. But this encounter with a stranger proves nothing and could have taken place on another occasion anyway (p. 259). Whatever the case, that vague recollection of a mother’s lamentation gives a good indication of the atmosphere that must have developed in the region of Rais since the return of the man who dominated it under the protection of high walls.
1436
May Assault on Michel de Fontenay
 
Gilles has entered into a violent quarrel with Michel de Fontenay, one of the two teachers to whom his father, drafting his will on his deathbed September 28, 1415, had been anxious to entrust him. Michel de Fontenay, an Angevin priest, out of friendship had seen to the publication in Champtocé, near the University of that city, of the royal letters interdicting Gilles. While passing through Angers, Lord de Rais abducts him. It was an act of violence whereby he publicly claimed authority he did not have. This abuse of authority was all the more crazed as Michel de Fontenay was an ecclesiastic and a notable. Gilles has him imprisoned at Champtocé, then at Machecoul; he probably would have come to the same end in these prisons as the unfortunate Gilles Meshcin did in 1423 (p. 73). But because of protests from the Bishop, officers, and the University, Lord de Rais frees the man who had been in charge of his education since his childhood.
36
August 24 and 25
 
The family — primarily Gilles’ brother, René de La Suze, and a cousin, André de Laval-Lohéac — is obviously resolved to oppose any deal that Jean V, the Duke of Brittany who openly refuses to abide by the letters of interdict, pursues with Gilles. Intending to respond in advance to the intentions of the two lords, who are bound to him by ties of vassalage, Jean V exacts an oath of fidelity from them.
September 5
 
Fearing the intrigues and, evidently, the preparation for attack on the part of these two lords, Jean V shows up in person at Machecoul. There he receives an oath of fidelity from the captains occupying garrisons belonging to Gilles in Brittany, which had not yet been sold: Michel de Sillé, Gilles de Sillé’s brother, and his lieutenant, Jean de Dresneuc, of Machecoul; Conan de Vieilchatel of Saint-Etienne-de-Mermorte; Yvon de Kersaliou of Pornic; Valentin de Mortemer of Le Louroux-Bottereau. Captains like these might have been more faithful to his family than to Gilles himself.
September 13
 
Yolande d’Aragon’s youngest son, Charles, governs Anjou in the name of his brother René, the King of Sicily, “the good King René,” then prisoner of Philippe de Bourgogne; at the same time Charles is in fact, since 1433, Charles VII’s prime minister. Charles d’Anjou, Count of Maine, holds an interview on September 13th with Jean V of Brittany and Constable de Richemont on the banks of the Loire at Ancenis. Gilles de Rais is still able to sell his lands within the limits of the duchy of Brittany where, as we have seen, an important portion of his fortune remains. But above all he still possesses, in Anjou, the beautiful fortresses of Ingrandes and Champtocé that Jean V would like to acquire at any cost; Champtocé, on the Loire, is in a sense the key to Brittany. Champtocé is disputed at Ancenis in the presence of Gilles’ brother, René, now a lieutenant of Constable de Richemont, and André de Lohéac, his cousin, who helps him defend the family’s interests. Dunois and Jean de Bueil also are present at this conference. The question of Champtocé, posed by Gilles’ financial distress, is of first-order importance. Apparently Jean V only wants to buy time. We do not know what he does to appease them, but he agrees to exchange letters of alliance with Yolande d’Aragon’s son. He does not intend to observe them! Alliance, fidelity are sworn to on both sides, but nobody intends to keep his word!
(1436)
 
1437
Near the beginning of the year Gilles de Rais’ valets Poitou and Henriet
 
Étienne Corrillaut, called Poitou, originally from Pouzauges, becomes Gilles de Rais’ valet. He is not yet twenty years old. According to Poitou’s deposition at the ecclesiastical trial (p. 228), Gilles has intercourse with him from the moment he enters his service; after which Gilles wants to kill him and had picked up a dagger to do so, but Gilles de Sillé prevented him, explaining how beautiful a lad he was and that he must keep him. But in his confession at the civil trial (p. 279), it is said that ten years after having entered Gilles’ service (he entered his service then sometime around 1427), he saw two dead children in his master’s room; Gilles wanted to kill him, but Briqueville and Sillé prevented him. Giles then had sexual intercourse with him and made him take an oath never to reveal what he had seen or would see (pp. 228 and 279). He will observe Gilles’ secret, that he often cut the throats of his victims, and he will become his procurer; he will be hanged at the same time as his master (p. 138).
The other valet, the Parisian Henriet Griart, is at this time in Lord de Rais’ service as of three years, but he has not been introduced to his master’s secrets. A little later Poitou will be trusted with doing so.
Murder of Catherine Thierry’s brother
 
Shortly into 1437, Catherine, the wife of a painter named Thierry, living in Nantes, entrusts her brother to Henriet with the intention that he be admitted to the master’s chapel at Machecoul. He is the first child whom Henriet, according to his confession, had led to Machecoul into the room where he is killed. Henriet does not seem to have understood at first what is going on. In the first place, his master asks him to take an oath: he must not repeat what he is about to learn. Thereupon he is surprised, according to his confession, at the disappearance of Catherine Thierry’s brother. It is then that Henriet suspects: Gilles himself killed the child.
Poitou and Henriet’s testimonies agree but, according to Henriet, this murder happened three years before the trial. Poitou speaks of four. These differing versions alone permit us to deduce the approximate dates on which Poitou, then Henriet, became their master’s accomplices (pp. 227, 235, 276).
February or March
 
René d’Anjou, a prisoner of Philippe de Bourgogne, is freed January 28th. He returns at once to Anjou. On his return, René de La Suze and André de Lohéac ask him to affirm his opposition to the possible sale of Ingrandes or Champtocé, citing Gilles de Rais’ acts of violence and banditry: was his mother not robbed by his men? René d’Anjou declares Champtocé confiscated to his profit; then he obtains a signed and sealed promise from Jean V not to buy the land. Jean V will even swear “over our Lord’s dead body during the singing at Mass.”
37
Jean V does not stop, for all that, to discuss the terms of sale with Lord de Rais!
May 26
 
By Breton custom, Jean V had no right to buy his vassals’ lands. It is in the name of his son Pierre, therefore, that he buys the manor of La Bénate for ten thousand crowns. He gives sixty pounds to Prince, Gilles’ herald of arms, who has served his interests in this affair. But he runs into the opposition of Anne de Sillé; during his lifetime, Jean de Craon, whose widow she now is, had in fact assigned this land which belonged to him as a dowry to his wife.
October Gilles’ family takes control of Chomptocé
 
 
Gilles has the children’s bones burned at Machecoul
Having learned of Jean V and Gilles de Rais’ deals but resolved to decide the issue, René de La Suze and André de Laval-Loeheac take Champtocé. Gilles takes fright and, fearing an attack on Machecoul, requests Gilles de Sillé and Robin Romulart to remove “from a tower near the lower hall” of the fortress the “bones of forty children or thereabouts” and burn them. Later, according to Poitou, Gilles de Sillé said to him and Henriet: “Wasn’t Milord Roger de Briqueville a traitor to have asked Robin Romulart and me to watch Lady Jarville and Thomin d’Araguin through a slit when we removed the said bones?” (p. 238). Evidently Briqueville’s noble friends were attracted by an unhealthy curiosity. The story need not be invented; it responds to the sensation that Lord de Rais’ crimes provoked in the seigneurial world: rather vague indignation, outright scandal, occasionally an unspeakable disturbance. The number of accomplices that Gilles easily finds at his service alone illustrates to him that his crimes were then not so monstrous; all in all, it had to do with a great lord and miserable children. Justice reacted on the occasion of another affair; under certain political circumstances, justice might have closed its eyes.
(1437)
 
November Gilles’ family takes Machecoul and discovers the skeletons of two children
 
The bones are burned fifteen days or three weeks before Lords de La Suze and de Lohéac arrive at the castle of Machecoul (p. 229). Gilles’ brother and cousin take Machecoul in November. In spite of Gilles de Sillé’s and Robin Romulart’s cleaning efforts, one could still find the skeletons of two children in that lower part of the tower from which forty victims’ bones were removed. The captain of one of the companies who took the garrison asks Poitou and Henriet if they knew about this. In their deposition, the valets say that they responded no: Gilles “had not revealed his secrets” to them yet. Obviously they are lying. If they had not been privy to his secrets until after the taking of Machecoul, that is, logically, since the transfer from Champtocé (p. 275), they would have been initiated together. But as we have seen, Poitou initiated Henriet (p. 100).
Evidently the discovery of skeletons played a role in the rumors that started growing from that moment. This time, those in the know apparently are lords; and not just Gilles’ relatives, but his enemies.
November 2
 
Jean V, alarmed, feared seeing Anjou enter into war with Brittany. Jean de Bueil could invade his territory from Sable. That is why the Duke calls for a reunion in Vannes of all the vassals in the duchy, among them Lords de Rohan, de Châteaubriant, de Malestroit, and de Rais. Jean V exchanges letters of brotherhood in arms with Gilles. He removes the lieutenant generalship of Brittany from André de Laval-Lohéac, his brother-in-law, giving it to the man whom he has just made a brother in arms under the pretext of services rendered. There is, he thinks, a plot by Laval against him …
Even though Arthur de Richemont is occupied with war against the English, his brother asks for his help against Laval-Lohéac. He definitely intends to get his hands on Champtocé.
December 25
 
Gilles stays at Vannes, where Jean V holds court. He is now reduced to the very self-serving, sole protection of this grasping feudal lord. Henceforth he is burned on all sides, and Jean V’s pretended friendship will not prevent the latter in the near future from handing Gilles over to the judges at Nantes. But at this moment Gilles is at Vannes with his chapel; they sing the Divine Office before the Duke on Christmas.
Gilles signs a pact with Jean V; he hands over Champtocé in exchange for one hundred thousand gold crowns. His fortune is on the brink and this is the last chance he has to turn it around. But, to begin with, Gilles must recapture the castle that his brother now occupies. To that end he enters into tortuous transactions with the latter. In coordination with René d’Anjou, the royal power tries to substitute René de La Suze. But the brothers slyly succeed in coming to terms; René will cede the fortress, pretending to defend it, while Gilles will give him seven thousand gold crowns and the possession of La Mothe-Achard in exchange.

Other books

Time's Mistress by Steven Savile
47 - Legend of the Lost Legend by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead)
The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky
Skin Deep by Helen Libby
Mask of Swords by Jonathan Moeller
Only an Earl Will Do by Tamara Gill
The Golden Desires by Pratley, Ann M